Teaching Time Management to Kids (Screen-free Summer Life Skills Bingo)

Teaching time management to kids is a challenge, especially when you toss in school schedules and responsibilities. Fortunately, my friend Kirby from Under Thy Roof has great suggestions for helping your kids manage their time. Welcome to this week’s installment of Screen-free Summer Life Skills Bingo!

It’s almost back to school time! One of the big hurtles of back to school is getting kids back to a schedule!

I will confess that I LOVE planning and organization and that I’m a bit of a mutant that way. Most kids don’t come programmed like that – my own included. Here’s how we go about getting off on the right foot in those first weeks of school.

Repeat, repeat, repeat

Everything we are about to do involves repeating to the kids (and to yourself) what you need to be doing until it becomes a habit. Remember that YOU are learning this routine too!

Decide on Your Rough Draft Routines

Pick your order for morning and getting ready for bed. Pick a start time and an end time. Nothing else, just keep it simple.Walk the kids through it every day repeating what you are doing now and what you are doing next. Try it out for at least two weeks.

Sample Morning Routine

Awake by 7:00am

Breakfast

Get dressed

Make beds

Free play until 8:00am

Sample Evening Routine

Bath around 7:00pm

Quick pick up (10 minute timer)

Reading Time

In bed, lights out

If you start small and simple, success is far more likely!

Timers are Handy

The worst part of doing something you don’t want to do is feeling like it will last FOREVER! IT WILL NEVER END!

But it will end. When the timer goes off.

Whenever we do a pick up time I set the timer. I announce if this is a 2 minute, 5 minute, or 10 minute timer to the kids, then I set it for that actual amount of time (no cheating!) on my phone with the volume up. Every minute or so I’ll announce how much more time we have. Chores get done promptly and the kids can return to their desired activity in far less time than they did when I nagged them to pick up their room over and over again.

This strategy works well for kids who need a push to get that math sheet done, or practice their piano, or anything else they would rather not do but should.

Get Kid Friendly Clocks

I make sure there are clocks the kids can easily see from their eye level. If I tell them we are watching a movie at 5-3-0 it helps to not be answering constant “What time is it now?” questions.

We use this lovely stoplight alarm clock for the kid’s room. Even my toddlers can grasp that when the light is red it is not time to get up, when the light is green you are free to move about.

Get Yourself A Calendar

One you will actually use! We love Google Calendar in our house, but I know a number of other families prefer to use a paper calendar stuck to the fridge or a huge chalkboard calendar. Other people swear by bullet journals. Whatever works for you.

Fill Out the Calendar in a Calm and Cool Frame of Mind

Start filling it out with ONLY the things you are already committed to doing. Now is the time to know if you are double booked.

Next comes the things you should do. I schedule mass times, confessions, and rest time into my calendar because they can become forgotten priorities.

Next comes the things you would like to do. Is there a place you have always wanted to go as a family? Schedule it in. Another family you would like to get to know better? Invite them for dinner and put it on the calendar. Don’t go super crazy, but allow yourself some dreaming room.

Now do the things on the calendar like it’s the law. Unless there is an honest to goodness emergency, honor the choices you made now when you are calm and collected.Make Time for Rest!

The point of getting routines down to habit and your time organized is now you have more time for that oh so important rest time! If you are prone to going non-stop, schedule yourself some rest time.

Remember the kids need rest too! Even if you are homeschooling and home all day, schedule some quiet time for the non-nappers.

In our house we do about noon until 2:00pm as a quiet time, that I call turtle time for my iffy nappers. You don’t have to sleep, but you cannot get off your bed or be loud until 2:00. They gather whatever they want to do during turtle time before the start of quiet time, and that’s all they get until turtle time is over.

Kirby is a Texas girl who now calls the Minnesota Twin Cities Home. Mom to two little ones by day, ballet dancer and actress by night. Currently nesting for the new baby due in September! She blogs about Catholicism, parenting, homeschooling, and Ballet at Under Thy Roof. (Connect with Kirby on Facebook and Instagram)

I’m not a homeschooler but for several reasons, I have my oldest one-on-one most week days for the next month. I have been trying to set up a mini curriculum before he heads to preschool in September. I need to implement a couple of these tips – starting with setting a timer!